


The Skullbearers

by MrProphet



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Murder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-22
Updated: 2017-04-22
Packaged: 2018-10-22 17:18:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10701555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MrProphet/pseuds/MrProphet





	1. Induction

Zaccheus Myrth entered the shrine with his heart fluttering in excitement. Since he had joined the Skullbearers he had committed various acts of terror; destroyed homes and precious artefacts, inflicted curses of pain and binding on Muggle and Muggle-born alike and discovered besides all a real talent for arson. He had worked with the other young recruits to the movement, and particularly with his former schoolmate Sorrel Hollyhock. Sorrel, a Slytherin in their Hogwarts days, was a witch whose sadism was a tribute to her former house, but he had also found in her a ready wit and a loyal comrade. After a year, their services and dedication had at last been rewarded and they were to be brought before the altar of skulls to become a full member of the order.

Zaccheus was surprised to be brought in alone, but he said nothing. The Magisters of the Chapter stood at the altar, their skull-masks blank and unreadable. He had never seen their face, knew them only as the Black Magister and the White, and knew only that the Black was a witch and the White a wizard. Their Skullbound servitors hovered at their shoulders, their eyeless socket sucking in light and magic alike. The altar loomed high behind them, two columns of skulls flanking a basalt table adorned with strings of finger bones.

He stepped forward, trying to hold himself steady, but his eyes kept straying to the ragged bundle which lay on the altar steps between the Magisters. The final test, the last initiation; to commit the one act that he had not yet committed in his service to the Skullbearers: Murder.

“Why does he come?” the Black Magister demanded in her high, reedy voice.

“He thinks himself worthy,” the White Magister sneered.

Zaccheus took a deep breath. “I come before the altar to dedicate myself to the cause,” he said.

“What will he do?” the White Magister asked.

“Let him speak it himself,” the Black Magister responded. With a sudden rush, one of her Skullbound flew from her shoulder to hover in front of Zaccheus, staring sightlessly into his eyes.

“I… I devote myself to the Order,” he stammered. “I shall do all that is asked of me, flinching not from terror, nor cruelty, nor mayhem, nor chaos, nor destruction, nor murder. I shall be the hand of the darkness, the destroyer of impurity.”

“He says that he will kill,” the Black Magister mocked.

“Test him,” the White Magister agreed.

The Skullbound swept back to form a semi-circle and the two Magisters pounced on the ragged form and ragged it to its feet. The White Magister held the sacrifice by the shoulders while the Black ripped the hood from its head.

“Sorrel!” Zaccheus cried.

“Kill the witch,” the Black Magister crowed.

“Take her head,” the White Magister goaded.

“Bind her soul.”

“Yours forever.”

“But… she’s my friend. A member of the order. She’s pure.”

The White Magister cackled with laughter. “Did you think our servants would be anything but?”

“Your bond is strong,” the Black Magister insisted. “You care for her and she for you, her skull will serve you truly.”

“Take her. Bind her.”

“Join us.”

Zaccheus drew out his wand and prepared to unleash the killing curse. He had always known what would be asked of him and had thought himself prepared, but now that the moment came and his victim was someone he knew; someone he cared about; someone who, for all her cruelty, he had come to depend upon, even to love.

He lowered his wand. “I can’t,” he whispered.

“He does not take his oaths seriously,” the Black Magister hissed.

“He has failed,” the White Magister agreed. “Take him.”

Once more, the Skullbound rushed towards him. Its eye sockets seem to fill his vision and he fell.

*

He woke to darkness, his eyes bound with cloth and his head covered by a hood. Muffled voices came to him through the cloth.

“What will she do?” The White Magister asked.

“Let her speak it herself,” the Black Magister responded.

In a nervous, cracking voice, Sorrel Hollyhock began: “I devote myself to the order…”


	2. Blooding

He wasn't her first kill, not really, but Zaccheus didn't count. After all, he was still with her, in spirit if not in body. Besides, she had killed Zaccheus with magic; a knife, it turned out, was very different.

Fog swirled around her and then parted as the Black Magister stepped forward to stand beside the crumpled body. Stiffly, the old witch bent and pressed her hand into the expanding puddle of blood. She stood and placed her hand on Sorrel's face, fingers splayed, smearing a red mask across her face.

“Now you are one of the blooded,” she said. “One of the chosen.”

“Is that all?” Sorrel asked. “I thought the test would be harder.” She looked at the crumpled body of the young wizard she had killed, opening his throat so that he could not speak before piercing his heart to end his life. “He trusted me, came with me willingly.”

“And that did not make it harder?” The Magister's voice might have registered some surprise, but it was hard to tell beneath her skull mask.

Sorrel smiled. “It made it easier,” she said.

“Then you are truly one of us.”

*

Sorrel apparated directly to her foyer of the house. It shouldn't have been possible, not without setting off a dozen alarm spells, but the Skullbearers had their ways and Zaccheus – dear, Skullbound Zaccheus – hid her from prying eyes, either mortal or magical.

Softly she slipped back to the bedroom. She glanced in the mirror and saw that her face was clean, although she could feel the bloody hand print still. Smiling to herself, she slipped into bed and curled up alongside her lover. He stirred at her arrival and she crawled over him, kissing him and rousing him first from sleep, then to passion and finally to ecstasy.

By the time the servants to announce to Sir Elliot Caradoc that his son had been found murdered in an alleyway, the Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement would have been prepared to swear to anyone that, at the time, he had been in bed with the killer.


End file.
